[Thermo]

The hatch doesn't have a separate lock, per se; It has a keypad in the middle next to the handle. You can only assume that the keypad causes the mechanism to retract locking pins that slide into the frame, similar to the door to a floor safe.

[eighth circuit]

"Merde!" Eugene mutters as he hears about the watcher spirit. Fortunately, he's got more friends to help. As he runs over to join Hyena inside the hut, Eugene calls his bound earth spirit from the metaplanes.

Spirit! I have no time to explain. There is a watcher who could cause us much trouble. I need you to chase after it, NOW! Eugene telepathically sends the earth spirit an image of the watcher's aura. When you find the watcher, destroy it. Unless it has met up with someone--in that case, tell me what you see. And please conceal yourself while doing this.

Eugene looks over the locked hatch with Hyena. Another unexpected trouble. Fortunately, this one would not be difficult to get around. He speaks in a hushed voice. "We don't need to destroy the hatch. If you can just create a distraction, say one involving the menacing sound of bullets striking an armored door, my spirit can sneak in, take out the mage, then hopefully open it from the inside. Oh, and good shooting, there."

Spirit search: Magic(5) + Intuition(5)
10d6.hits(5)=3
9d6.hits(5)=3
8d6.hits(5)=3
Let me know if you need more rolls

[Thermo]

@Jerry:

[OOC: you're still waiting on Doc T to take control of the drone and start scouting the base. You're also waiting on him to make his rolls for the "screamer" device. In the meantime, this is the initial look at the Shrapnel Dawgs' base.]

[farothel]

"Those who don't learn how to shoot here, end up dead," Hyena simply said, aiming for the trapdoor and trying to avoid the lock for now, "Give me a sign when."

[eighth circuit]

Eugene communicates the plan to his spirit, then gives Hyena the signal to shoot.

As Hyena shoots at the door, the spirit hides in the astral shadow of the floorboards, poking through just enough to check out where the mage is and find a good spot to hide and materialize. Once it's materialized, it jumps out and attacks the mage.

OOC:
I think the spirit needs both an astral infiltration (logic) test and a dual-natured infiltration (agility) test here.
Astral infiltration:
Logic(5) - default = 4 (4d6.hits(5)=3)
Physical infiltration:
Agility(8) - default = 7 (7d6.hits(5)=1)
using concealment, of course, and trying to hide behind something physical during materialization

I'm guessing a surprise and initiative test is next, assuming the spirit isn't spotted, but I'll wait to see before rolling for that

[Thermo]

After Eugene instructs his Spirit of Earth to follow and crush the Watcher spirit, Hyena begins to spray gunfire at the floor hatch, hoping that the menacing noise will cause the mage within to be distracted enough that the Spirit of Air can smother him. The Spirit of Air attempts to enter the space unnoticed.

[OOC: to speed things up, I'm going to use your previous initiative rolls for the first combat turn]

Group 1: Hyena and Eugene

Mage initiative roll: Mage initiative: Rea(3)+Int(5) (8d6.hits(5)=2) Init: 10
Spirit of Air initiative roll: Spirit of Air Initiative: (13d6.hits(5)=6) Init: 19
GM Mystery Roll (TM): GM Mystery: (12d6.hits(5)=5) Init: 17

CT1, IP1: Spirit of Air: 19 (2 IP); Mystery: 17 (? IP); Hyena: 14 (3 IP); Eugene: 11 (1 IP); Mage: 10 (? IP)
Edge: Hyena: 3/3 Eugene: 2/2 Mage: 1/1

@Eugene: You sense your spirit as it attempts to hide itself astrally from the mage's perception. It is successful. It now attempts to materialize in the space without alerting the mage, using its power of Concealment.

Spirit Infiltration: Agi(8)+Defaulting(-2)+Concealment(5) (11d6.hits(5)=7)

Mage perception: Int(5)+Perception(3)+Distracted(-2)+Visibility(-2) (4d6.hits(5)=2)

The spirit appears to have materialized undetected, it will attack in the second IP. Eugene, this was your third service, so after it attacks the mage it will return to the Metaplanes.

@Hyena & Eugene:

The ground beneath you begins to tremble. You look down and see the dirt floor underneath you begin to pull itself towards the middle of the room, almost like a piece of cloth laid flat was being pulled up in the middle by invisible fingers. You see a vaguely humanoid shape start to take form, created from the dirt and rock itself. It has glowing red eyes and doesn't look terribly happy to see you.

Hyena, your turn

[Thermo]

Group 2: Jerry and Doc T

As Jerry puts the final touches on the jury-rigged screamer device, he wipes his hands in satisfaction.

"That should keep the little fuckers at bay, at least long enough for us to shoot them"

Jerry takes control of the FlySpy back from Doc T and checks the data logs.

@Jerry:

You fast-forward through the FlySpy's recon recordings and piece together the situation. The FlySpy didn't get close enough to pick up any audio. You see a ring of shipping containers with generator-powered lights at three locations illuminating most of the exterior. There are several smaller shipping containers inside the compound, which you assume are for sleeping and maybe supplies, and you see that one of them is apparently the IT center since it has a satellite dish and antenna on the roof. There is an animal cage on the other side of the compound, which appears to be empty at the moment. There are two newer-model pickup trucks parked inside, and you get the distinct impression that they do not belong to the Shrapnel Dawgs, as they are far too nice (and new, and clean, and maintained, and expensive, and you get the point). There are two walker-modified Steel Lynx drones inside the perimeter, providing security at the gate. Finally, there is a camouflage netting tent set up with a bunch of crates underneath. You see that several of them look identical to the one in the back of your truck, S-K logo and all.

There appears to be a business deal going down, and you can tell that it's about to wrap up. There are several armed men in dark fatigues who walk towards the crates after shaking hands with a scuzzy-looking orc wearing an armored jacket.

There are several other Shrapnel Dawg members present at the site. There are three inside the compound, each standing near one of the light poles. Two more are walking back and forth along the tops of the shipping containers, keeping an eye out for trouble. The appear to be keeping an eye on the activities inside the compound as much as outside, looking for trouble or signs of a double-cross.

Finally, you see that the drone marked two groups walking outside the compound, each completing a slow, lazy circle around its perimeter. Each of these teams consists of two men and what appears to be a Barghest!

You're currently approximately a kilometer away from the Shrapnel Dawgs' base. Your truck is in the pool of light cast by the airport's guard tower. There are some decent places to hide your truck closer to the base, if you're willing to risk getting closer.

The arms deal is almost done. It's a few minutes past 2:00 AM.

What do you do?

[farothel]

"Earth spirit," Hyena said when she spotted the creature coming up.  It would be next to useless to fight it with her rifle.  Bullets would bounce of harmless.  But her sword was made amongst other things to battle spirits.  So she dropped her rifle and drew her sword while moving beside Eugene to cover him.
"Stunbolt him," she said to the mage.


Drop weapon: free action
draw weapon: simple action
move to Eugene: simple action

[eighth circuit]

Eugene stares down the Earth spirit with a look of intensity. He doesn't like to hurt spirits, and he definitely doesn't like to attack them directly, but here he seems to have no choice. He'll try and get this over with quickly. As mana visibly swirls around him, his face takes the look of a bird of prey, silently soaring in for a kill. The blood vessels in his eyes pop from the power of the spell.

Casting stunbolt at force 9!
Magic(5) + Spellcasting(5) + Owl Mentor(-1) = 9 (9d6.hits(5)=4)
Edge to re-roll failures--don't want this one to fizzle:
Re-rolling 5 failures (5d6.hits(5)=0) Arrrrgh what a waste
Drain resistance
Cha(4) + Wil(5) + Focused Concentration(1) = 10 (10d6.hits(5)=2) Took 1P damage

[Eleven]

After scanning the immediate area around the parked Truck Doc felt confident that there were no near threats.  "I'm not sure I can help too much, Jerry, but I'll lend you what assistance I can.  Clearly I'm better at creating and fixing holes in people than electronics, but Lets see if I can translate that knowledge... From what I understand the ideal frequency is...

Knowledge Medicine 5 + Logic 4 =  (9d6.hits(5)=4)

...Assuming I'm right, that should work.  How 'bout you finish that up and I'll take the fly spy for a ride?

Doc doesn't have any skill operating a fly spy.  I assume it would be reaction -1  Reaction 8 - Unskilled at pilot aircraft 1 =  (7d6.hits(5)=3)Attempting to keep the fly spy unobtrusive, Doc flew it in a rough circle around the compound. Thanks for just jumping ahead, and checking the cameras output

...Jerry - If the deal is going down now, then it would seem activating the box now is the way to go.  My guess is that you'll know what to do when it's opened better than I will.  I'm locked and loaded, lets do it."
Doc climbs off the bed of the truck and rechecks his weapons preparing for the "unveiling".


[/color]

[Sentinemodo]

All right, let's do this.
Jerry ticked off timer on his AR clock and opened the package.

OOC: Thermo, I assume, that the point of that package is to alert the corp when opened (or you would have let me open it when I was in the warehouse) so I won't bother with jamming on the fly. But if my security knowledge (and shadowrun gut) matches the GM approval, than consider my commlink being turned on as a jammer on the fly giving me an effectitve jamming rating of
Signal(5) + Electronic Warfare (2) + Math SPU(2) -> 9d6.hits(5)=3 hits, opposed by signal rating of the device + ECCM software if installed (but if there is a node inside running eccm, I'd probably try to hack it immediately to turn it off)

I also have a jammer that automatically jams any device with signal lower than 4.

regardless, my next course of action, after opening the package is to find the emitting device, turn it off, turn off the jamming on the fly and remotely drive the pickup closer to the Dawgs base while inspecting the content.

[Thermo]

Group 1: Hyena and Eugene

CT1, IP1: Spirit of Air: 19 (2 IP); Spirit of Earth: 17 (2 IP); Hyena: 14 (2 IP); Eugene: 11 (1 IP); Mage: 10 (? IP)
Edge: Hyena: 3/3 Eugene: 2/2 Mage: 1/1

@Hyena:

You drop your rifle to the floor and draw your sword, maneuvering into place so you block the Spirit of Earth from having a straight attack at Eugene. As you move into position, you activate your weapon focus, feeling the energy crackle through the sword.

@Eugene:

Your stunbolt erupts from your palm in a beam of focused white light, hitting the spirit squarely in the chest.

Resist Stunbolt: Wil(5) (5d6.hits(5)=1)

Damage: 9S

The spirit roils in pain as the stunbolt ripples its rapidly forming shape, knocking sand and rocks out in all directions. It's probably getting to be close to disruption.

[eighth circuit]

[OOC: I'll save my edge and leave the stun damage at 9, so I take 1P damage and earthy gets to go another round]

[Thermo]

Group 1: Hyena and Eugene

CT1, IP2: Spirit of Air: 19 (2 IP); Spirit of Earth: 17 (2 IP); Hyena: 14 (2 IP); Eugene: 11 (1 IP); Mage: 10 (? IP)
Edge: Hyena: 3/3 Eugene: 2/2 Mage: 1/1
Wounds: Spirit of Earth: 9S(-3); Eugene: 1P

@Eugene:

Your telepathic link to the Spirit of Air tells you that it is attacking the unfortunate mage, using its Engulf power to strangle him with toxic smog fumes. You hear screams from the women in the room as it starts to fill with smoke.

Engulf Attack: Agi(8)+Engulf(5) (13d6.hits(5)=4)
Dodge: Rea(3)+Dodge(2) (5d6.hits(5)=2)

Base Damage = Magic(5)+Net hits(2)+Energy Aura(4) = 11S
Damage Resist: Bod(7) (7d6.hits(5)=3)

The mage leaps over one of the tables as he attempts to escape the choking smoke monster rushing towards him. He fails to get clear, and the spirit slams into his lungs and grips his chest, totally engulfing his upper body and making it impossible to take a breath. The smoking energy aura only makes things worse, adding thick smoke to the effect. The mage is tough and resists some of the damage, but the spirit is too strong and he takes 8S damage.

@Hyena:

The Spirit of Earth rears up and appears to inhale a breath of air, followed by blasting a huge gout of sand and rocks directly at you. The entire room fills with a cloud of dust, making it hard to see. The abrasive blast has the force of a fire hose. A fire hose shooting rocks.

Elemental Attack (Sand): Agi(3)+Exotic Ranged Weapon(5)+Wounded(-3) (5d6.hits(5)=2)

[OOC: base damage is 5P+net hits, resist with half impact armor. Future actions have a -2 visibility modifier until the dust settles.]

[Thermo]

Group 2: Jerry and Doc T

@Jerry:

You pull the truck away from the guard tower along the airport security fence just far enough that you can still see. You climb into the back of the truck and stand next to Doc T. You turn the jammer on full power, just to be safe, and put your commlink, Doc T's commlink, and Cinderella's onboard computer into hidden mode. You turn your commlink's security and monitoring programs on and open the latches on the white S-K case. You flip open the lid.

Inside is a long, heavy-looking weapon. It's dimensions are roughly the same as an assault cannon, but you see that it has cooling fins installed along the sides of the weapon, and not just along the length of the barrel. Nested into the case is a shoulder strap and hip bracing harness, along with three very bulky-looking magazines, each with a "10+E" stenciled on the side. The entire frame of the weapon appears to have been made using a nano-forge, as you recognize the distinctive texture that they typically leave behind.

Your commlink is detecting faint electronic activity from the weapon, even with your commlink in hidden mode with the jammer running at full strength. You recognize the signal immediately as one of the ones used to track sensitive assets; they're microchips barely larger than nanobots that are distributed into the feedstock used in a nanoforge. They're fragging impossible to track down and disable. They use RFID signals to communicate with nearby nodes, and use military-level software programming to hack into any nearby nodes to send their exact position back to whoever installed them.

Opening the weapon case turned them from "passive" to "active" mode. They're stored in "passive" mode so they can be transported without flooding the area with signal; if you had the correct biometric signal to transmit to the weapon, they'd turn off, but you don't, so they're searching for a way to transmit back to "home base" through the Matrix. Nasty stuff. The microchips are probably also in the bullets, or whatever this thing fires, so they can do forensic stuff later if they need to.

This thing is going to hack into one of the nearby systems in very short order; the jammer is helping but it's not enough to keep them out for long.

@Doc T:

You watch as Jerry opens the case. The dwarf is scratching his head trying to figure out exactly what he's looking at, but you recognize it immediately. At least, you know what it resembles. It's got a strong resemblance to one of the weapons you saw in the field once. This appears to be a newer model, though; the old one had a built-in laser sight, but this one clearly has a smartlink. You didn't think S-K had the capability to design this type of rifle.

No fragging wonder they want to keep this a secret.

Your eyes widen as it finally clicks that you're looking at a stolen prototype Saeder-Krupp Gauss Rifle. Holy. Drek.